The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(20)

Selena says gently, ‘Holly’s right, Orla. If he likes you, he’ll say something.’

Gemma is watching, amused, from her guy’s lap. She says, ‘Or else you’re just jel.’

‘Um, obviously? Because Andrew Moore wouldn’t touch any of them with someone else’s,’ Joanne snaps. ‘Who are you going to believe? Us, or them?’

Orla’s mouth is hanging open. For a second her eyes meet Becca’s, stupid and desperate. Becca knows she has to say something – Don’t do it, he’ll rip you to pieces in front of everyone . . .

‘Because if you trust them more than us,’ Joanne says, cold enough to freeze Orla’s face off, ‘maybe they should be your best friends from now on.’

That snaps Orla out of her daze. Even she understands when to be scared. ‘I don’t! I mean, I don’t trust them. I trust you.’ She gives Joanne a wet smile, belly-up dog. ‘I do.’

Joanne keeps up the cold stare for a moment, while Orla twists with anxiety; finally she smiles back, graciously, all forgiveness. She says, ‘I know you do. I mean, hello, you’re not stupid. So off you go.’ She shoves Orla’s leg with her foot, pushing her off the fountain-edge.

Orla gives her one last agonised look. Joanne and Gemma and Alison nod encouragingly. Orla heads off around the fountain, so tentatively that her walk turns into a half-tiptoe mince.

Joanne looks up at the tall guy, with her head dropping to one side, and smirks. He grins back. His hand slides onto the side of her waist, and down, as they watch Orla get closer to Andrew Moore.

Becca lies on her back on the cold sticky marble and looks up at the domed ceiling of the Court, four high stories above them, so she won’t have to see. The people scurrying upside-down on the balconies look tiny and precarious, like any second they’re going to lose their footing and go plummeting, arms outspread, smash head first into the ceiling. From the other side of the fountain she hears the rising predator roar of laughter, the mocking shouts – Wahey Moooore scooore! – Go for it, Andy, the ugly ones give the best head – Pity f*ck! Pity f*ck! And, nearer, the high insane screams of laughter from Joanne and Gemma and Alison.

‘I’ll have my fiver now,’ Julia says.

Becca looks up at the top floor, at the corner where the car-park pay-stations are hidden away. Next to them is a thin slice of daylight. She hopes a couple of first-years are up there, craning their necks out of the window, all of this greasy mess windblown out of their minds by the sweet wide world rolled out below them. She hopes they don’t get kicked out. She hopes as they’re leaving they light a piece of paper on fire, toss it in the bin and burn the Court to the ground.





Chapter 5


The front door was heavy wood, dark and battered. For a second after Conway pushed it open, the deserted stillness stayed. Empty dark-wood staircase sweeping upwards. Sun across worn chequerboard tiles.

Then a bell went off, everywhere. Doors flew open and feet came drumming out, floods of girls in that same navy-and-green uniform, all talking at once. ‘Fucking hell,’ said Conway, raising her voice so I could hear her. ‘Timing. Come on.’

She headed up the stairs, shouldering through the wave of bodies and books. Her back was set like a boxer’s. She looked like this was Internal Affairs and root canal rolled into one.

I went after her, up those stairs. Girls poured round me, flying hair and flying laughs. The air felt full and glossy, felt high, felt shot through with sun at mad-dash angles; sun swirling along the banisters like water, snatching colours and spinning them in the air; lifting me, catching me everywhere and rising. I felt different, changing. Like today was my day, if I could just figure out how. Like danger, but my danger, conjured up by a high-tower wizard specially for me; like my luck, sweet tricky urgent luck, tumbling through the air, heads or tails?

I’d never been anywhere like this before, but it felt like it took me back. It had that pull, all down the length of your bones. It made me think words I hadn’t thought since I was a young fella reading my way through the Ilac Centre library, thinking that would get me in between walls like these. Deliquescent. Numinous. Halcyon. Me, long-legged and clumsy and daydreaming, far off my patch so no one would see me, giddy with thrill like I was doing something bold.

‘We’ll start with the headmistress,’ Conway said, on the landing, when we could get side by side again. ‘McKenna. She’s a cow. First thing she asked me and Costello, when we got on the scene? Could we stop the media naming the school. Do you believe that? Fuck the dead kid, f*ck gathering info to catch whoever did it: all she cared about was that this made her school look bad.’

Girls dodging past us, ‘’Scuse me!’ high and breathless. A couple of them threw looks back over their shoulders at one of us, or both; most were moving too fast to care. Lockers banging open. Even the corridors were lovely, high ceilings and plaster mouldings, soft green and paintings on the walls.

‘Here,’ Conway said, nodding at a door. ‘Put your game face on.’ And pushed the door open.

A curly blonde turned around from a filing cabinet, hitting the big-smile button, but Conway said, ‘Howya,’ and kept walking, past her and through the inner door. She closed it behind us.

Quiet, in there. Thick carpet. The room had been done up with plenty of time and money, to look like someone’s old-fashioned study: antique desk with green leather on top, full bookshelves everywhere, heavy-framed oil painting of a nun who was no oil painting. Only the fancy executive chair and the sleek laptop said office.